Get LOW

For those of you that have read my other posts, you know that I like my boards low. Is there a point where it is just to low?

I was looking online at boards and came across this picture. I just took the picture from my laptop screen, I wasn’t thinking I would ever have a Blog.

Well, I just came back from a year at college and was looking for jobs. So, I had some spare time to fill. I wanted to make what they called a “Hellaflush” board. I just so happened to have a skate board I hadn’t used in years in the basement somewhere. After looking for an hour or so I found it! My spider-man board that was bought at Toys-R-Us many years ago. It was in no way a high quality board so I got down to work. I only had the above picture to follow. So, first thing is cutting the holes out.

I do not have very many tools available to me, so I sawed away to get into the board. The only problem is, I can’t really turn the saw sideways to cut down the center of the board. So, I found a drill and just drilled plenty of holes until I could snap off the chunk with my hands. I might have sawed into my hand once as well…

As you can see in the picture that I was basing myself off, they had long bolts to hold the trucks to the board. I looked around Home Depo and bought the longest bolts they had that would fit though the trucks and the board’s holes, just using the same nuts it had originally. It was less than half an inch too short. After some more searching, these were as long as the bolts came. I had to think of something else, Zip ties became the answer.

I was going to use the black wheels as seen in the second picture. However, they needed even more space into the board. I was already pushing it before the board would snap under my weight. Thus, the original skate wheels were to be used.

I finally completed the board, and it was low! I put a penny next to it for scale, near the right wheel. However, stepping with both feet in the center gave me very little room, and the board scraped against the ground. Thus, I had to have one foot in the center, and one on the kick tail balancing myself out somewhat.

This board was fun to make, and have. However, it is impractical. With no real trucks, and only zip ties to hold down the wheels, steering was hard to say the least. As well, with my weight it scraped constantly against the ground. With these setbacks, I can not use this as a daily rider. In fact, I can hardly move more than three feet without scraping so much, all momentum gained is lost completely.

With this project completed, the short answer is yes. Yes, you can get to low for real riding enjoyment. But was it worth making? Yes, now I am the proud owner of my very own Hellaflush board.